Lost and found: Python, breast implants and a winning lotto ticket

Thursday, January 03, 2013

By Emma Hallett

A python, a winning EuroMillions lottery ticket, Harry Potter’s wand, breast implants, a bucket of live crabs and a diamond-encrusted iPhone have topped a list of the most bizarre items people have left behind in hotel rooms.

Budget hotel chain Travelodge has named some of the items relegated to their lost and found offices last year.

Topping the most unusual items was a pet python called Monty who was discovered by a staff member in a room at the Bristol Severn View hotel.

While the company found several weird, wonderful and rare items mislaid, it said the 10 most popular items left behind were phone and laptop chargers, pyjamas or clothes, teddy bears, toiletry bags, books, electrical items including laptops and tablets, satnavs, phones, electric toothbrushes and bags or suitcases.

The company said that during the last 12 months, more than 20,000 books were left behind in its hotel rooms — 7,000 of which were Fifty Shades Of Grey.

Shakila Ahmed, from Travelodge, said: “Each year our lost and found departments provide plenty of revelations.

“From keys to a Bugatti, Harry Potter’s original wand, a micro pig, breast implants to a script from a well-known British soap programme, our customers’ left-behinds demonstrate what a cross-section of people stay in our hotels.”

One customer had placed his winning EuroMillions ticket under his mattress for safe keeping, but oversleeping and forgot to pick it up. However, he came back when he realised and was reunited with the ticket.

More mysterious objects included a pantomime horse, a pair of breast implants left by a guest who was en route to London for a cosmetic operation, a box of 200 Queen Elizabeth masks and a wand — worth £2,000 — that was used in the Harry Potter films.